Evidence for
Anthony Jacques Cheeper (visible 1837-1877 and 1910-1918)
and
Anthony Clarke (visible 1877-1904)
Being The Same Person

There is no incontrovertible proof that Anthony Jacques Cheeper (AJCh) was the same person as Anthony Clarke (AC). (And there can't be such a thing as incontrovertible proof, because such ambiguity is in the nature of human identity. Names are malleable. Register entries are that, and nothing more. Even biometrics will never be all that reliable).

But there's very substantial circumstantial evidence that AJCh and AC were the same person.

Not least among this evidence is that, in the space of 4 days in September 1877, one AJCh ceases to be at a particular address, with a wife and 2 children; and a nominally different person, called AC, appears in his place.

Here's the rest of the circumstantial evidence:

• Anthony Jacques Cheeper is evident in public records:
  • 18 times 1837-1873 (at age 0-36), including birth, marriage, multiple children and censuses
  • 4 times from 1910 until his death in 1918 (at age 73-80)
  • but not once for the 33 years between 1877 and 1910 (at age 36-73)
    • Entries 1837-73 comprise:
      • his birth in 1837
      • his marriage in 1858 to Catherine Spilsbury
      • the birth of 10 children by her, 1859-1877
      • a bankruptcy notice, and a disposition of bankruptcy notice (1862)
      • a 'Notice of Liquidation by Arrangement or Composition with Creditors' (1872)
      • the birth of Harold, by Mary Wanless, in 1873
      • Census entries in 1841, 1861 and 1871 [no entry has yet been located for 1851]
    • Entries 1910-18 include:
      • the birth of Donald Anthony Cheeper, by Amy Clark, in 1910
      • Donald's death in 1911
      • the 1911 census (acquired much later than the other documents, in February 2009)
      • his own death in 1918
• Anthony Clarke does not exist in the records before 1877 (at 40)
  Anthony Clarke does not exist, of his own volition, after 1907 (at 70).
  There appears to be no birth entry and no death entry for an Anthony Clarke of that age.
  Yet there are 36 entries in the period after 1877 (list below), in a period that begins precisely when Anthony Jacques Cheeper ceases to be evident in the records.
  (These of course include references by Anthony Clarke's ex-wives and children after 1907).
  The 36 public record entries for Anthony Clarke that have been found comprise:
  • the birth of 2 children to Mary Wanless in 1877 and 1879
  • Mary's death certificate in 1882
  • his marriage to Emma Terry in 1882
  • the births of 4 children by Emma Terry, 1882-89
  • the births of 10 children with Kate Davidge, 1884-1904 [1 has not been located]
  • Census entries of 1881, 1891 (twice) and 1901
  • the births of 3 children with Amy Clark in 1902, 1905 and 1907
  • the marriages of 2 Wanless, 7 Davidge and 2 Clark children
• Mary Wanless bore a child to Anthony Jacques Cheeper, called Harold, out of wedlock, in September 1873. The child was registered as Wanless, but was later indexed as both Wanless and Cheeper but not Clarke. But, throughout his life, including on his own marriage certificate in 1893, Harold called himself Clarke, and his death certificate carries that name as well. (By itself, this is inconclusive, because a subsequent partner called Clarke could have adopted Harold, formally or informally, and applied his own surname to the child)
• Mary Wanless then bore two children to Anthony Clarke (in September 1877 and June 1879). These latter two were called Clarke, as was she; but there is no evidence of a marriage certificate. That leads to the reasonable inference that they used the device of adopting the same surname, Clarke, in order to convey the impression of being married
• both Cheeper and Clarke consistently used the first name Anthony – with one known exception, on one of two census forms completed in 1891 in the names Anthony and Robert. (This is, of course, by itself in no way conclusive)
• both most commonly disclosed their profession as [variants of] 'commercial traveller'
• both declared on their marriage certificates that their fathers had been Anthony
• both declared on their marriage certificates that their fathers had been ribbon-makers (and, according to Pigot's Commercial Directory of 1839, Cheeper's was)
• although Anthony Clarke appears to have never himself used the second given name Jacques in any formal documents, it is used as his second given name on three occasions, by Anthony Clarke's wife, and by two of his children, over a 20-year spread:
  • on the birth certificates of Eva in 1886 and Leslie in 1889, where his wife Emma was the informant. Emma named the father as Anthony Jacques Clarke
  • on the marriage certificate of Stanley, his second son by Mary Wanless, in 1901. Stanley nominated his father's name as Anthony Jakes Clarke
  • on Emma Terry's death certificate in 1906, their daughter, Gertrude, gave his name as Anthony Jacques Clarke
• in the census on 2 April 1911, a situation arises for which Occam demands that AJCh and AC be treated as the same person, i.e. any other explanation is simply too difficult to believe. You may have to read the following three sentences several times ...
  • in the 1911 census, Anthony Cheeper claimed to have a wife Amy Neil Cheeper, and children Beatrice Victoria 11, Cyril Gordon 9, Winnifred Phillis 7 and Muriel Vyner 5
  • no marriage entry, and no birth entries, exist in those names
  • closely corresponding birth entries exist for the 4 children, as children of Anthony Clarke

If anyone can spot a material weakness in the circumstantial evidence, let us know!!!!

This a page within Roger Clarke's Family Web-Site

Contact: Roger Clarke and/or Anne Kratzmann

Created: 19 October 2005; Last Amended: 5 January 2006, updated 17 October 2009